Nightmares
by TotoroBird
Summary: It's several months after the Himmel Street bombing. Liesel and Rudy survived, but have lost almost everything. One thing they do have left is nightmares. Reviews welcome!


**A/N: Okay, I am so sorry for this absolutely appalling idea but I have been literally ACHING to write another Book Thief fanfic, and since I have had nil to no inspiration, I'll have to make do. Bear with me.**

**The Book Thief belongs to Markus Zuzak, as well as all the characters. If I owned it, I can guarantee that Rudy wouldn't die. Just saying.**

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'Liesel?'

'Mph?'

Liesel pulled her heavy head from the industrial, goose feather pillow and squinted through the darkness of her new room. Her eyes could only just outline the shape of Rudy, stood apprehensively in his pyjamas, his agitated fingers biting at the ends of his long sleeves. She sighed sleepily and resumed her original position with a considerable amount of duvet in her mouth.

'Liesel.' He prodded her on the shoulder.

'What's wrong?' she mumbled.

Rudy looked down at his bare feet sheepishly. 'Nightmare.'

'Again?' Liesel forced herself up into a sitting position, rubbing her eyes with the palm of her hand. As her vision adjusted, the features of her room began to emerge from the liquid darkness. Rudy waited patiently for her to wake up properly.

'Why can't you have a nightmare when I'm suffering from insomnia?' Liesel grumbled as she rested her head against the headboard.

'You don't already suffer from insomnia?'

'Thanks to you saukerl, I'm half way there.'

Rudy grinned despite himself and dropped down onto her bed, sitting beside her. She shuffled over a little to give him room.

This wasn't the first time. It was two hundred and eleven days since the bombing had stolen their families. Liesel had unconsciously crossed off the days in her mind with a dull black mark. Nightmares were common ground she and Rudy unwillingly shared; a painfully barren prospect that haunted their sleep and stuck to their lungs in preparation for the moment that they woke up, crying sweat and gasping for oxygen.

Rudy suffered it worse. It was both a blessing and a curse that he had not suffered the effects of death beforehand and the wound was fresh and raw. Liesel knew death like an old aquaintance; the wounds had been reopened but were in no way recent.

It hurt. Very, very much. But not quite as much as Rudy.

After several months of Ilsa Hermann opening the door to find Rudy asleep in Liesel's bed, or vice versa, she calmly requested that Liesel at least wore boy's pyjamas rather than nightdresses, to save any indecency. It wouldn't have mattered either way. Despite their age, Liesel and Rudy were nothing but children, seeking each other's warm comfort against a corrupted world.

Rudy's hand immediately found hers among the sheets, and she gripped it tightly, though she let no expression of grief cross her face.

'What was it this time?' she asked quietly.

Rudy stayed silent for a moment. Then, with a voice as flat and grey as the concrete sky outside, he spoke.

'It was a quiet place. There was no sound at all. And ash fell as slowly and silently as snow. The sky was on fire.' His eyes were glazed over with sleep and sadness, yet he continued on. His voice sounded as if it was powered by rusty clockwork. 'It was beautiful and scary at the same time.'

'I was running. Just running and running as hard as I could. But the street just kept going. Somehow I knew my mother was at the other end of it, and my brothers and sisters, and papa.' He took a breath to steady himself. 'But I couldn't reach them. No matter how hard I ran, I couldn't find the end.'

He shut his eyes. 'I couldn't save them.'

Rudy fell into a defeated, heavy silence that consumed the room like the flames that caused it. Liesel stayed, suffocated by it, unable to breath a word of comfort to him, for there was none. Instead, she rested her head on his shoulder, and prayed that it would be enough. Her other hand crawled over to their already intertwined ones, and locked his hand between her fingers.

'I had one,' she said across the quiet. Her words hung in the air, before falling to the ground and scattering.

'No you didn't,' he said bluntly.

'Yes I did.'

'Because that looked like the sleep of someone who was having a nightmare,' Rudy spat out.

She ignored the spite biting at the air. 'It wasn't a nightmare.'

He looked at her in curiosity. 'What was it?'

'I don't know exactly,' she answered truthfully, 'I was laid in my bed, the one in Himmel Street, and my Papa was sat by my bedside.' She smiled a little at the image. 'He was stroking my hair, telling me to go to sleep.'

She looked at the window; between the pale yellow curtains, there was a slice of night, radiant with stolen moonlight.

'Then he began playing his accordion. It was a lullaby but I can't remember the tune. And Mama was yelling up the stairs telling him to shut that racket up.' Her eyes tasted of salt as the tears stung at them. 'I thought it was real,' she whispered.

Rudy looked at her simply. 'It was, saumensch.'

Liesel bit down hard on the sob swelling up in her throat like accordion bellows. 'Yes,' she conceded tearfully. 'It was.'

They fell back into another silence. It was brittle, like a book spine, liable to crack at any strain and release a whirlwind of heavy rain words and emotions. They clutched at each other's hands like an anchor.

'Read.'

It was such a short, insignificant sound that Liesel almost thought it hadn't happened. But the word was so familiar, the voice so dear, the meaning behind it so very deep, that she couldn't help but hear it.

'What?'

'You heard me, dummkopf,' Rudy grinned. 'Read. Christ knows you do it often enough.'

Liesel's eyes flit over to her bookcase. It certainly was a magestic set of mahogany and nails, fat and brown like an over fed bear. It was very large, considering there was a room full of books just below the few inches of wood and carpet she resided on. Peeking around the corner of the third shelf sat the small collection of books she had salvaged from Himmel Street. The other shelves echoed with emptiness.

Most would think that this was pointless, a waste of dead tree. Truthfully, Liesel found its presence comforting. It was tall and smelt of paint and smoke, like her Papa. Elaborate or not, necessary or not, she would not let the bookcase be taken away.

She pushed herself off the bed and padded over to the smooth, dark wood and tasted the delicate scent of pine and cigarettes. She picked up The Whistler. Its pages were thick and heavy with water, the cover was blanched pale grey with ash and dust. Much of the paper was torn.

Liesel headed back to the bed and sat down beside Rudy, who had settled down among the duvet, listening expectantly. Clearing her throat a little, she began.

'_A neat little tune tore from his pursed lips as the murderer looked down at his prey. The knife grinned in his hand. It was a friend he would happily perform for. But now, it was time for business. And time was a stolen gift that was slipping through his fingers like the sweet, slippery tune of bloodshed...'_

The words were dry in her mouth, old and crusted over with endless hours of disuse. Rudy lay beside her, devouring the words as they left her lips with his ears. Liesel was reminded of cowering in dark, cement basements, reading books to her terrified neighbours. She pushed this memory from her mind as she concentrated on reading.

After a short while, she glanced over to see Rudy asleep beside her. A small smile bit at the edge of her lips as she watched the steady rise and fall of his chest. Accordion bellows. Placing the book on the floor, she settled down so her face was level with his.

'I love you, saukerl.' The words fell from her tongue before she could stop them. They seemed amplified in the cool night air.

After establishing that Rudy had most likely not heard her, her eyelids dropped and she began to drift off. Among the warm, black oblivion, she felt an arm weave round her shoulders and pull her closer, so that she was tucked into his neck.

'Love you too, saumensch,' a voice mumbled sleepily out of the darkness.

They fell asleep almost seconds later, swallowed by delicious peace and dreams of surviving.

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**Like I said, it's absolute bullcrap. But right now, I'm taking any story ideas I get so yeah...**

**I know, some plot details are out of place and such, but at this point, I'm just happy to have some inspiration, so forgive me. Thank you very much for reading. Free cookies for all!**


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